Working title: Chance in Cascade
by Sonnevi
Summary: Strange Luck x-over. Warning: wip
1. Default Chapter

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Date: 04 March 2002  
Disclaimers: All characters belong to them as made them...   
  
Warnings: Work in progress. 'nuff said.  
  
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by Sonnevi  
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Not surprisingly, it was luck that brought him into Cascade.  
  
A round-trip ticket had come in from the mail, for no reason at all that he could imagine, not really being a regular customer anywhere except at Angie's place. Apparently that grocery chain *thought* he was a regular customer, anyway.   
  
Why *had* he filled up a lottery form? He didn't usually tempt fate that way. Grocery . . . grocery . . . oh, yeah, the girl had given it to him while they were talking. It had been an ordinary customer information sheet, not really a raffle form. No harm, he'd thought then.  
  
Well, there it was now, sitting on his table. He hadn't _deliberately_ meant to get it, nor even tried to push his luck, nor even thought about it. It just . . . happened -- which usually meant he should go. Take the opportunity that presented itself, as he'd done all his life.   
  
Something would happen. It always did. Bad or good? Depended on your point of view. Usually, it balanced out, either way. And he'd never been one to pass up an opportunity.   
  
So what was wrong? He tried to rationalize the ambiguity of his feelings.  
  
Not taking the ticket didn't necessarily mean that the bad thing wouldn't happen anyway. It might mean, in fact, that someone else would get hurt because he weren't there, with his experience.  
  
That sounded reasonable enough. There were just a few things. One, he just didn't get along with planes. His feet were his most reliable means of transportation, and his car was his second -- when it wasn't lost, stolen, broken, or wrecked, that is. A plane was definitely not high in his list of means of transportation. He wasn't afraid of flying, no matter what any shrink looking at his history might think, but the sheer number of people and factors involved made flying just plain complicated. What was a plane but a hunk of metal and science waiting to fall? Science didn't mix well with the vagaries of luck, he'd noticed. Then again, he conceded, few things did. At least he knew how to fix his car, most of the time.   
  
Second, second . . . was there even a second, after that? Hmm . . . right, he didn't have much money for a trip like that! Come to think of it, the depressing thought naturally followed, he rarely had money, period. He wondered briefly if he could find a place that would lend him scratch-cards there. Angie did, but she was his friend, after all, and she'd known for a long time that she'd usually get paid by 2 or 3 cards . . . Angie . . . yes, not a bad idea.  
  
Maybe he should ask Angie for advice.  
  
***  
"So, Ange, what do you think?" He displayed the ticket to her somberly.  
  
"Chance, that's wonderful!" She took a look at his face. "It's not wonderful?"  
  
"I dunno, Ange, I need your advice about this. I dunno whether to really trust a plane, you know? And I don't really have money to go. But," he toyed with the ticket in his hands, "I'm afraid of what will happen anyway without me. I mean, a ticket falling on my lap like this is a bad sign, I think . . . " he looked up at her worriedly. "Something big is probably going to happen there, or it wouldn't've come to me."  
  
Angie digested this for a while.   
  
"Why does it have to be a bad thing?" she mused. "Maybe you'll be there in time to see the Panthers win against the Bears . . . " She grinned at him. He smiled a bit, but uncharacteristically lapsed back into worry. He was usually such a happy-go-lucky kind of guy, taking things as they came. And he usually never deliberated so much about his choices... he just moved with the groove. She grew serious for his sake.  
  
"Okay, let's test this. You don't have money, so you couldn't really go even if you wanted to. Well," she amended, "knowing you, you'd survive somehow, starving on the streets, if you really had to, but . . . "   
  
Chance grinned at her discomfiture, but let her go on. He was asking her advice, after all, so he'd better listen up. "Chance, get a scratch-card," she continued abruptly.  
  
"What?" he asked reflexively, not seeing the relevance.  
  
Angie explained her insight patiently. "To go, you need money. You don't have money, but if you're really meant to go by the powers that be, or whatever . . . "  
  
Amazement dawned, and a broad grin spread on his face. "Ange, you're a genius!"   
  
He patted himself over.   
  
"Lend me a card?"  
  
***  
Cascade wasn't bad at all. He was happy to have made it without mishap, at any rate. Still, he couldn't help but be uneasy, waiting for the other shoe to drop. While he checked into his hotel, nothing of the sort did, but it did begin to rain.  
  
He had enough funds to last for quite a while, if he was careful. The ticket was open, so he could leave anytime, as soon as whatever-it-was was done. He wasn't going to doubt that something would happen yet, it was much too early to say, and he had too much experience behind him that said something would happen. If whatever-it-was took too long, then he had his trusty camera, and the names and numbers of a few of Audrey's friends who worked here. He'd lived without, before. Life would go on.   
  
The advantages of freelance photography, he thought with a wry grin, as his good humor reasserted itself and he took in the sights and sounds of this new city. Just pick up, click, and go. And if nothing major did happen, weeellll, he grinned to himself again, he'd just have one free vacation, to go. Couldn't be better.  
  
Maybe Angie was right. He might as well look up the Panthers while he was here.  
  
***  
"Hey, Chief. How d'you feel about watching a game tomorrow?" Detective James Ellison waved the magic passes in front of Blair Sandburg's face.  
  
"Man, where _did_ you get those tickets? I've been trying to beg, borrow, or steal them everywhere for weeks, and you just *happen* to have them on hand? That is so unfair." His hands spread out emphatically, palms down, almost like an umpire gesturing 'Safe!', to underscore the injustice of it all.  
  
"That mean you don't want to go?" Jim teased.  
  
"Whoa! I said nothing of the sort. Try and stop me," said his partner, as he made an attempt to grab the tickets from his taller friend's hands.  
  
***  
Come on, Chance groaned to himself as he went to the stadium. The place was packed, and the game wasn't for an hour yet. Basic questions came to mind: things like, 'Where's the stupid ticket booth?' and 'How am I going to get in?' He looked around curiously. The milling mob here could be any crowd at home going for a game, quite a few with their team's caps, jackets or decals proudly displayed like badges. Follow the crowd. They surely knew where the entrance was even if he didn't.  
  
A girl, walking hurriedly past with a man who was towing her, dropped something.   
  
"Miss? Miss, you dropped your ticket!" Chance called. She glanced back with an indecipherable expression on her face, but the man bringing her never faltered, and she was lost in the crowd immediately.   
  
That was it. Chance was a sucker for pretty faces. He picked it up and ran after her.  
  
***  
James Ellison winced about twenty minutes away from the stadium, then got his sensitive ears under control. Blair Sandburg smiled in sympathy, but let him be as he saw his partner was handling it. At least Jim could dial down his hearing. The game will be great, but I'm gonna be deaf for a week after this, Blair thought. But it'll be worth it . . .   
  
***  
It was no good. He couldn't seem to find her nor the man who'd been towing her. The lady had surely seen him pick up her ticket. They'd been going fast, though. Chance hadn't been able to make his way through the press fast enough to catch them. Common sense said that they'd bought another ticket or more likely, figured that somebody else had snatched the ticket for themselves and gone home instead, since they obviously weren't at the entrance waiting for him. No point in chasing them, really.  
  
***  
With his hearing turned down, Jim heard no more than the ordinary snatches of conversation going around him. A slightly raised voice caught his attention, however, as it did a few others' in the vicinity.   
  
"Nancy, you *know* how important those tickets were! How could you have lost them like that?"  
  
"I don't know, Alan! They just slipped. You were going so fast, I couldn't stop, and you weren't listening to me!"  
  
Alan didn't look convinced, but began to realize that he was drawing attention. He moved them along, against the flow of everyone else going to the game.  
  
Jim mentally classed it as a domestic dispute, not serious, and dismissed it, more concerned with the game. What man wouldn't be upset by the loss of a Panthers-Bears ticket?  
  
Beside him, Blair had also caught the fringes of the argument and apparently thought the same. "Poor guy, " he said.   
  
"That's right, Chief. That's why *I'm* holding the tickets, here."   
  
"*Such* a control freak, man," was muttered under the breath good-naturedly -- Jim almost didn't catch it. He only grinned some more as they looked for their seats.  
  
***  
Chance looked carefully at the ticket. The girl had only dropped one, so maybe one of them was inside waiting for someone to return it. Or maybe there was a Customer Service office somewhere -- a better and more likely option. He started hunting around for it.  
  
The customer service representative seemed rather startled. "That was very courteous of you, sir, but no one has come forward to complain about a lost ticket. The man might be a regular ticket holder, but it's also unlikely. All our regulars know they can come to us immediately in case of a problem. Matter of fact," he added confidentially, "it's probably hopeless. Tickets have been sold out for weeks, so the owner should have come forward by now, if ever. We offer no refunds of any sort, and reselling that would be illegal. The game's starting. You might as well take it."  
  
***  
"Man! These are excellent seats! What did you do, blackmail somebody?" Blair asked his buddy.  
  
Jim only smiled mysteriously. "I have my ways, I have my sources. Just sit back, relax, and enjoy."  
  
"This is absolutely the best!" Blair enthused, soaking up the atmosphere of the stadium. "Great!"  
  
Jim didn't think it was too bad, himself, and smiled all the wider. Their seats weren't top-class, but somehow managed to be just the right angle to see everything, near enough the speakers to hear while not so close as to be deafened, close to the aisle, close to the food, close to anything else that was important like the exit, and were *still* right beside each other . . . in short, they were perfect. He couldn't help but feel a little smug, though he owed Den big-time for this.  
  
***  
'All right. Now what?' Chance thought to himself. Ok. Maybe the lady or her escort was there by the seats after all, waiting for whoever showed up. If one was there, they could go outside to where the other was surely waiting, go to the entrance, explain to the people there, exchange places, and get this all sorted out.  
  
Yeah, right.  
  
He walked out into the stadium proper, blinking at the bright lights. He went to the seats, but there was no one there. Nothing for it but to enjoy the game, he rationalized. He kept looking over his shoulder, however, waiting for the girl or her boyfriend to show up. Neither did.  
  
"Hey, mister." An indifferent boy tossed a duffel bag on the empty seat beside him. "Your friend said he couldn't make it, but here's the bag."  
  
Chance frowned in puzzlement. "Are you sure he meant me? There must be some mistake."  
  
"Yeah, very specific. He said seat 41, row J. No other seats like that around here. Place is packed. Said you'd be with your girl, like always. Empty seat beside you must be hers," the boy said with boredom. "Don't see anyone else here looking for the bag," he concluded, as though that cinched it.   
  
"Wait a minute. Did he say why he couldn't come?" Chance tried to probe without appearing too ignorant.  
  
"Emergency, the dude said," the boy actually started to show some signs of life -- impending impatience, for one. "Did he look sick? Was he pale?" Chance pressed. 'Was he tall, short, fat, dark, thin, what the heck did he look like???' he speculated internally. He wished he could ask.  
  
"Dunno, dude. He looked fine. Didn't say what emergency anyway." Duty done and clearly wanting no more to do with it, the boy left.  
  
Curiouser and curiouser.  
  
Well, then. Investigate the bag now, or give it in to the authorities?  
*** *** *** 


	2. 

BRANCH 1 -- BOMB  
  
He decided to turn the bag in. The way the boy talked, the guy must be a real regular, whatever that customer service man said. Since he was right beside the aisle, it was no big deal to get out and go in that direction during a break in the game.  
  
***  
"I am in the mood for some hotdogs and chips. You with me?"  
  
"Nah, man, go ahead. Cholesterol'll kill you though -- you know that, don't you?"  
  
"Oh, like your cooking won't. I'm out to get *real* food now."  
  
"Real food, he says. So much for appreciation for the culinary arts. So much for cultural appreciation."  
  
"Get real," he threw back over his shoulder.  
  
***  
Without preliminaries, Simon demanded, "Jim, you're at the stadium, aren't you?" once the cellphone line was opened.  
  
"Yeah, Simon, it's the middle of the Panthers and the Bears. What gives?" Jim said as he reached into his pocket for his wallet.  
  
"There's been a bomb threat. No reason given yet, just the threat. Set to blow in the middle of the game."  
  
"Simon, it'll be impossible to evacuate everyone, you know that."  
  
"Well, unless *you* can find the bomb, Jim, we don't have much choice." Simon sounded exasperated, exhausted, and questioning, all at once.  
  
"Getting right on it, sir."  
  
***  
"What happened to the food?"  
  
Jim went closer so as not to start a widespread panic. "Bomb threat, Chief," he said softly. "Simon wants to know if it can be found."  
  
Blair looked around. The sheer chaos that was a stadium pounded into him . . . sights, smells, sounds, and sheer volume -- and sighed and blinked. "He doesn't ask for much, does he?" he asked, looking up at his friend with a quirk of the lips.  
  
"Only what we can give," Jim reassured. "We can do this."  
  
Blair liked the sound of that: We.  
  
***  
"It's you again?" The customer service representative recognized him easily. "What's the problem?"  
  
Chance laid the bag on the counter. "There's something funny going on around here, I gotta tell you. Somebody just gave this to me out of the blue. He meant it for that guy on my seat. He must be a regular after all." Chance explained easily.  
  
"All right, sir, I'll check in the computers."   
  
A few minutes later, the agent returned. "I'm sorry, sir, but he's not. Perhaps there's some form of identification in there. We'll take it from here, thank you." Chance turned after surrendering the bag. Maybe he should have looked at it first.  
  
"Hold it!" the man raised his voice. He must have pressed a button, because security came running to detain Chance. "Are you sure you can't explain this?"   
  
The bag contained a set of wires and explosives.  
  
***  
"Jim, call just came in. Service counter's holding a guy who surrendered. Better go check it out."  
  
"Sure, Captain. Jim and I'll be right over." Blair turned off the phone and took his partner out of the light trance he'd been in. "Looks like you won't need to be the wunderkind today, Jim. They've got it."  
  
***  
"Look, " Chance explained, knowing it was useless, but getting it down for the record anyway. "*I* didn't make any bomb threat, I was here in the stadium. I don't even live here. I don't own this, I didn't know what was in it when I got it, I didn't even have a ticket until 5 minutes before the game!"  
  
Now *that* was suspicious, if nothing else, thought the officer taking down the statement. Tickets had been sold for weeks, and the management was strict about scalpers. And look at this guy's record! He's been accused of everything except assassinating the Pope, and was cleared _every_ time? That definitely smelled, too. If he was always innocent ... come on, give me a break, I'm not stupid. The average citizen goes out of his way to avoid trouble or get a record. People get charged with good reason. It's not even like he was a "usual suspect", these charges were from all over the place. Then again, if he were guilty, how could he be entirely cleared of every single charge? Did he have friends who were high up? That would be disturbing, too. But the friend *would* have to be high, considering the varying sources, not just this clown's hometown. The man sure did get around. Look, he'd even added Cascade to his list. Maybe he was going for a record, or something. We always do get all the crackpots, the cop thought sourly.  
  
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Author's notes: This has already gone farther than I thought I could get, seeing as I only imagined the very first scene, with Chance holding the ticket, and the consequent diner scene with Angie. The rest followed a little more naturally, but it's stalled at the moment. It doesn't even have a real title. I don't know if stadium management tends to prosecute scalpers, and somehow I think that Chance _would_ open the bag before blindly giving it in, so that part's likely going to change. There was a Branch 2 for drugs instead of a bomb. I haven't made up my mind yet. It was either unwritten (likely) or got eaten up by one of the viruses that wiped the computer. I don't recall at the moment. However, I feel that the next virus might be the last -- additional reason to post, even if incomplete, so that there's a backup, as it were. I meant to post it in Guide Posts (way back in 1998 -- Cascade Library was just getting started then, if I recall correctly), but wanted it done first. I'll let it rest here a while in the hopes of getting a second wind... 


End file.
